The Nokia Lumia 928 - the Lumia 920, a bit better and on Verizon

We've been saying for a while now that the Nokia Lumia 928 is essentially a slightly-retooled Lumia 920 for Verizon. And sure enough, now that 928's been formally announced, we can compare the spec sheets and say, "Yes, they're just about the same phone." But there are some differences - let's see just what they are.

Both phones sport an 8.7 megapixel PureView camera with optical image stabilization. Where the 920 has a dual-LED flash unit, the 928 packs what in theory should be a more powerful blinker with a xenon flash. The 928 is one of a rare breed of smartphones to sport a flash we'd expect to find on a dedicated point-and-shoot camera. Other examples include the HTC 7 Mozart and Nokia N8 (the progenitor of the modern Nokia design language)

Oddly, Nokia quotes the 928's xenon flash as having a range of 3 meters - the same as the 920's LED flash. Both cameras otherwise appear to be identical, with 1/3.2" sensors, f/2.0 apertures, focal lengths of 26 mm, and a minimum focus range of a ridiculously close 8.0 cm. Spec-wise the cameras are the same, but we imagine Nokia's put some polish work under the hood to make an already great camera even better in the 928.

Both phones have 4.5" PureMotion HD+ and ClearBlack screens with a 1280x768 resolution under a sheet of Corning Gorilla Glass. But where the 920 has an LCD IPS matrix under that chemically-hardened glass, while the 928 has an AMOLED display.

AMOLED screens are historically more difficult to read in direct sunlight, but if Nokia's ClearBlack polarization enhancements are as good as they've been in the past, it might not be too bad. Both touch panels also sport super-sensitive touch so you can use the phones with your fingers swaddled in the warmth of gloves.

Both phones sport Micro SIM slots, Micro USB ports, and 3.5 mm audio jacks, though on the 928 all three on are on the top of the phone, while the 920's USB port is on the bottom. The 928 and 920 also come with Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, and NFC. The have the same dual-core 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor, the same 1GB of RAM, and the same 32GB of internal storage and 7GB of cloud storage.

Radios are where things really start to get different, seeing as the 920 is exclusively a GSM device, while the 928 is exclusive for Verizon - a CDMA carrier. The Lumia 928 packs a CDMA Rev 0/A radio for 3G connectivity and an LTE radio for connecting to Verizon's 4G network. In addition to those two, there's also a GSM radio on board, but knowing Verizon the way we know Verizon, it's bound to be locked for only international use.

Those radios coupled with the AMOLED screen make a difference when it comes to the battery. While both phones lay claim to a 2000 mAh battery, the 928's operates at 3.41 Volts - lower than the 920's 3.7 Volts. Neither battery is removable, being tightly packed inside the hacker unfriendly unibody polycarbonate case. The 920's no slouch when it comes to battery life, but the 928's stated battery life is simply superior.

We're looking at 541 hours of 3G standby (up by 221 hours), 16.2 hours of talk time (up by 7 hours), and 80 hours of music playback (up from 52 hours). Of course, we'll have to get our hands on a 928 for a thorough review before we can say whether such absurdly long battery life really is possible with so much about the 928 being the same as the 920. Both phones come with integrated Qi wireless charging support.

The last bit to compare is the physical design of the two brothers. The 920 has been the standard bearer for Nokia's design language, featuring a curving unibody dye-injected polycarbonate shell topped by a sheet of black glass that curves gently near the edges. The 928, however, breaks with that design language. Whether it represents a the next evolution of the Nokia design ethos or merely the dictates of notoriously picky and selfish Verizon, the 928 represents a different design language for a Nokia flagship. The front is a single sheet of black glass that barely curves near the edges, and it goes all the way to the phone's edge - there's no color peaking out here. And speaking of colors, while the 920 comes in black, white, red, yellow, and blue, Verizon customers looking at the 928 are only going to see it in white or black.

The shape of the 928 is more squared and angular than any Lumia device to date. Instead of gently and naturally curving from front to back, the 928's polycarbonate shell has chiseled angles and straight lines, with only a subtle along the back plane. The speaker has been moved onto that back plane on the 928, allowing for a much larger grille opening.

Dimensionally, the 920 and 928 are nearly identical. The 928 is 2.7 mm taller, 1.9 mm narrower, and 0.6 mm thinner. Nokia has managed to shave away some mass, though, with the 928 weighing in at 162 grams - a full 23 grams lighter than the older 920. That's still heavier than many other smartphones on the market, even the large Samsung Galaxy S4 and HTC One Android smartphones, but few phones are as much smartphone as you'll get packed into the Lumia 928.

So compared to the Lumia 920, the new Lumia 928 has the same size but a different tech display, the same camera, and the same battery, the same processor, and the same RAM and storage. But the 928 sports what could be a better flash, is marginally thinner and substantially lighter, and is stated to last so much longer on a charge.

The most important distinguishing characteristics, however, are those cellular radios. The Lumia 928 isn't Verizon's first Lumia - they've had the Lumia 822 since late last year. Like the 822, the 928 packs a full complement of Verizon-compatible CDMA and LTE radios. But the 822 was no flagship device for Windows Phone on Verizon, even if it has proven to be a popular Windows Phone device for the carrier. Then again, Verizon's Windows Phone 8 offerings have been pretty slim, with the Lumia 822 until now accompanied by just the HTC 8X and Samsung ATIV Odyssey.

The Nokia Lumia 928 is going to kick the level of Windows Phone competition up a few notches for Verizon, even if it's just an improved a repackaged Lumia 920.

Even if it ships locked to domestic use, Verizon WILL provide the unlock code for the device if you have been a long standing customer. Direct example, HTC Trophy shipped locked, one call to Verizon unlocked it, even before contract with Verizon was over.

Other phones have shipped locked as well because of the 'contract' terms and Verizon not wanting someone to grab a free/discounted phone and then move to a another provider.

Verizon agreed to FCC requirements in keeping all their GSM bands unlock for their LTE devices, However since the VPN is not available to modify, some functionalities may not be available i.e. MMS. We are very much aware of it :)

Yeah, I have the 8X and my father has the 822, neither of which are SIM locked, so I doubt the 928 will be.
Wish they would have like a blue color or something else other than just black and white too...

I also got L920 and to me 920 is better and cleaner design. I don't like the super sqaure front and sides of the L928. The only think that I'm a tad jeleous of, is the fact that L928 will have a better battery life!

^I agree on on the battery holds more charge on the L920.
One thing I noticed recently is that on my L920, when ever I turn on the battery saver while on highest level on brightness, the brightness of the screen reduces a bit, so it makes it a bit harder to read he screen under the bright light.

I also agree. Apart from some small differences I don't see to much difference in the 2 devices. At least not enough to replace my awesome red Rogers unlocked 920 for the new 928. I'll wait until the next wave of WP8 devices to switch.

"better" is subjective. I find the design of the L928 simply atrocious! It's taller when the L920 is already too tall, and the squared design just makes it uglier.
I surely hope that this is not the way Nokia is going and is more the result of Verizon's decisions. Though...judging by the prototype of the 925...it doesn't look promising.

I agree. From what I have seen so far the 928 is not nearly as elegant as the 920. It seems to me like the models Nokia makes for specific carriers (821 and 822) don't have the same elegance and attention to detail as their other models (520, 620, 720, 920). That is obviously just my opinion though. I hope Nokia does not continue this trend of making exclusive devices for certain carriers. I personally would have just preferred the release the 920 on both Verizon and AT&T to begin with. Having said that the 928 seems like a dang nice device and Verizon customers are lucky to be getting a great Windows Phone with the awesome support of Nokia.

While many could agree that the 920 design is beautiful you cannot say that the 928 is outright atrocious. I disagree. The 928 looks good and the 720 based design fits it. My main point is its as nice looking as the 920. 928 ≤ 920 in looks.

I cannot say? I thought I just did. And I maintain it. The 928 is atrocious. As is the 720 in a smaller degree. Both phones went way too square and angled to have an elegant design. The 928 just makes it worse with that gigantic and ugly flash which still needs to be tested to see if it was at all necessary and the speakers grid on the back. (I won't even mention the branding on the front and the 4GLTE on the back).

If you like them, good for you. Some are bound to like it.
And others won't. And I don't. To me it is atrocious.

My favourite design is still the L800. It had the best proportions. While I find the L920 very elegant, I find it too big. And I'm not that fond of mammoth phones.

I also prefer the speaker on the bottom. It keeps the back of the phone looking nice and sleek. Especially since they moved all the ports to the top, I wish they had kept the speakers on the bottom and utilised the extra room that's now there.

The speaker on the 'back' can be a better listening experience depending on how you are using the device. For example some of the HTC products with SRS, like the HTC Trophy has a back speaker, by design to enhance bass.

When the device is sitting on a table or other 'hard' surface or even sitting tilted on a harder surface, the back speaker uses the surface to reflect/amplify/smooth the sound out, giving the phone much better and lounder sound, as the area for vibration is larger on the surface than the tiny phone itself.

Various sound MFRs going back to the 60s have used these designs and when done properly can produce rather impressive results from smaller speakers. Go find a 1980s Corvette with Bose sound, as the speakers are angled at the large back Window and other key elements in the interior. Using the BOSE array technology, four 4" speakers can produce rather loud sound and reproduce frequencies that normally would require a 10" dedicated woofer. (So much Bass that in the 1990 GM had to lower the BASS levels because it would vibrate the drivers too much.) Various other newer year Corvettes also have the same experience, that produce bass levels using the environment of the car and speakers array design. For the covertibles that do not have the larger back window to use with the speakers, the rear speakers are slightly larger and are angled at the fiberglass deck to compensate.

If you are holding the device in your hands, the back speaker and bass direction makes very little difference. Additionally if you are holding the devide, most user have headsets on when listening to music/movies.

The other good thing is that it sounds like Nokia was liistening to customers, because the sound in the 920, and especially the 822 is rather ordinary where the older HTC WP7 devices can provide playback for a room of people.

I wouldn't be shocked if VZW said Cyan was too close to AT&T's brand colors so they wouldn't carry it. I could see them releasing other colors like red (obvious), and maybe a screaming yellow or green once production is ramped up. I don't expect to see a Cyan (AT&T) or a magenta'ish (T-Mobile) offering due to brand identity.

I may be in the minority but I like the heft of the 920. Feels significant... Like I could drop it off a building and it wouldn't miss a beat. If I want light, cheaply manufactured hardware... I'll get a Samsung. =P

Loving my 720, despite being very light, it does not feel cheap at all. My mother likes her 920, and is impressed every time I teach her something new, but also complains about the weight every time I see her.

Not sure why the battery life of the 928 would be so much better than the 920. If the 928 is rated at 3.41V and the 920 is 3.7V, then the Watt-hour capacity of the 920 is 7.8% greater. Surely the difference in radios isn't enough to make up that difference and then some.

The backlight in the LCD usually consumes the bulk of the battery life. Maybe that's it? I suppose the AMOLED screen can be more efficient when displaying dark backgrounds, but I never got the feeling that phones sporting OLED screens actually saw improved battery life in real use.

god i wish the 928 looked like the 920. the 920 is such a better looking phone.its like when youre looking at all of tvs at best buy and you can clearly tell which one has the better picture but you take it home and it doesnt matter anymore. wpcentral, no more side by side pics please. i wanna feel good about my purchase lol

The thing with tvs is tricky. Best buy doesn't run all there tvs at there best. It depends on which ones corporate is trying trying to push more. I've seen it first hand by checking the connections in use at several stores by me. Its really unfair for consumers if you ask me.

Yay. Expanding WP users with the 920 experience. You just got the best smartphone you will ever use. One con about the micro USB being on top though. It might limit the use of 3rd party desktop accessories, or not.

From the video this looks to be a glossy finish. I was under the impression this was going to be matte finish, which I prefer. I am outside the US so availability of an unlocked 928 is almost a certain with the inclusion of the proper radio. Anxious to see this available soon. Sounds like win-win for me. The 920 is no slouch and most the features listed here are primarily Nokia exclusives or Windows 8, meaning nearly identical on the devices.

So either Iget a matte finish (watching a few cyan 920s for price reduction) or I dig deeper for a white 928. Almost ready to make a jump from my Titan.

Me too. A lot hate on the 822's plain look & not being a "flagship" device, but I like the smaller size and the "low" resolution doesn't bother me - the screen is too small to notice (or maybe my eye sight is getting bad - either way). The phone has the sane snapdragon processor so its no slouch and the SD card was a big selling point for me... not that I paid anything for it - another bonus.

Damn...I was pumped for this phone to be announced. I as well think the 920 looks a bit more sleek, though I do think the 928 is quite nice. What bums me out most is that I only have the choice of black or white. I really wanted yellow or red to be offered with this model. I just refuse to go back to ATT. Well...I guess another white phone it is, time to get rid of the white iphone.

Verizon only locked out the GSM radio from domestic use on phones without LTE. On their phones with LTE the SIM is completely unlocked and will work out of the box with any SIM card. MMS on the other hand is basically impossible to get working.
On the Verizon 8X the "Add MMS APN" function was first nonfunctional and later removed in the Portico update. The HTC Connection Setup app doesn't work on the Verizon 8X either. So there is no way of getting MMS working on any carrier but Verizon.
On the Lumia 822 the "Add MMS APN" function was at first present and somewhat functional and later removed in the Portico update. You can download the Nokia APN configuration app (Access Point) and it works on the 822, but even configuring MMS correctly it doesn't work. Outgoing MMS works but incoming doesn't work. It just says "Message not found". I tried every possible combination of settings and couldn't get 822 MMS working on AT&T.
So you can use a Verizon WP phone on ATT or TMO as long as you don't want MMS. I don't know about Android phones but I assume you can get MMS working either out of the box or through rooting or flashing a custom ROM.

Superior camera? It's identical. The only changes are probably some tweaking in the imaging software and the Xeon flash which hasn't been proven to be better as of yet.

Any Lumia device works all over the world. Unlike what most Americans think the world is bigger than the US and the majority of the worlds cellular networks run on GSM, not CDMA. The US is the exception to the rule with more CDMA carriers than GSM. For countries that do use CDMA there's also at least one competitor providing a GSM network. For about every CDMA subscriber there's about four times as many GSM subscribers. The reason for GSM's success is simple, it comes from a industry consortium whereas CDMA is basically controlled by Qualcomn; this makes it less expensive to build GSM equipment. But at the time when Verizon and Sprint popped up, CDMA was the hot new thing and at the time was better than GSM. GSM caught up but the paths were already chosen.

Roaming is also easier on GSM because any GSM network to be called GSM must accept any other GSM phone on it. This in contrast to CDMA where network access is controlled based on white-list of which phones are allowed. So for your CDMA phone to roam you're usually going to need a GSM modem too anyway.

The only advantage this phone has over the rest of the Lumia line is that it'll work world wide on GSM networks (except the US ones I'm betting) and additionaly can work on 1 CDMA network, Verizon's. Wooptiedoo.

100m+ more users have access to a Nokia WP8 flagship device. That's a great thing. Otherwise not much new going on here at all. Also, this was a surprisingly well-written article. Thanks Derek. Hope to read more from you, whoever you are.

If this phone was in cyan and had a removable battery and micro SD I would upgrade from my 822 in a heartbeat, however since no SD or removable battery looks like I might just stay with the 822, or maybe just get it since its cheap on contract and comes with a $25 app card that means alot of games.

To be honest, I'm really disappointed in this device. I don't mean it as "I want it but can't since it is CDMA", I'm genuinly disappointed in it. I'm not talking about specs either.

For some reason, which I'm betting on being Verizon, Nokia dulled down the design of the 928. Instead of being a real flagship and a showcase of Nokia engineering it appears to be a comprimise between an HTC 8X (the back) and an iPhone 4/5 (overall look and feel) thrown in to a blender. The colours are gone, the playfulnes which is something you find in the entire OS is gone, this whole feeling of something just a bit different and so obviously fun has been replaced by a square, black and white, executive suit.

Though this is a proven design, just look at the iPhone's and the majority of Android hardware, it completely breaks with what the Nokia design and Windows Phone have stood for; the smartphone reinvented around you. This whole device feels impersonal, like something that your boss would use at the office but doesn't represent him as the father of two lovely daughters.

I think this even shows in the pictures Nokia put up for the device. If you look at the 920 it's always showcased in one of the vibrant colours, usually yellow, something really popping. The tiles shown on the first picture of that device include Sky Drive, City Lens, Me Tile, IE, Music, Cinemgraph, camera, pictures, email (1), SMS (2). Stuff that's mostly personal, fun. If you go further down the line of pictures though there's a very busy lock screen with lots of things to do it does have the picture of a skater as it's background, yet again fun and playful.

If you now take the 928 showcase, they used the red tiles. It's a beautiful combination with the black of the screen but it's more dull, toned down. The tiles showcased are Xbox, Phone, Store, IE, ESPN, Weather Channel, CNN, App Hilights, Me Tile, Here Maps and two tiles I can't make out. Except for Xbox and Me those tiles are boring and represent applications to get outside information from, nothing particularily social about them. If you look even further, the 928 is showcased with 3 missed calls, 3 SMS'es and 8 waiting e-mails. That feels more like work, stuff I need to do, pressure, than just fun. Yes there's two pictures involving the camera that look more personal but hey, the whole Lumia line is about camera's too.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it but I find it striking that in so many aspects this device breaks with what Nokia and Windows Phone have stood for until now. I really hope this trend isn't going to take over the Lumia line. I'd hate to end up with yet another phone that looks like half a dozen of others.

Why did they place the USB on top again? Gladly I own a L920, for docking stations and USB-cables while navigating by car it looks better on the bottom. I thought USB on the bottom was also what Nokia agreed to be the new standard?
Till today I envied the new 928 owners (Amoled, Xenon). But now I've read this.... I don't see any reason why. Amoled in sunlight indeed is harder to read (owned a Lumia 800) and, according to the article, the Xenon flash doesn't make any difference.
Besides that... I like the design of the 920 more, esspecially because of the flat top and bottom with rounded corners/sides, and the curved screen. Which IMHO gives it a unique design.

This is a 920 with a little more make up on. While I'm glad that Verizon will now have a better WP choice for customers, I am also reminded that these people are still essentially buying a 7 month old. I don't even feel right recommending the 920 anymore because I know its going to get replaced soon. Unless its free of course.

I think the 928 looks a lot like the Zune HD, which to this day is still one of my favorite gadgets. I use the ZuneHD on cross-country or long international flights for, however if the 928's battery is really as good as advertised I may be able to carry one less device with me.

I still prefer the look of the 920. But a 928 in red would really make a statement. Didn't Verizon release a limited edition 822 in red for Valentine's? I wouldn't be surprised if they released some limited edition colors later down the road.

With the improvement of audio, battery performance, Xenon flash and 23g less in weight, the Lumia 928 is more than just 'a bit better' comapring to L920. I would pick L928 anytime if I had to make a choice between the two. Of course, the choice begins to get tougher when the Lumia EOS and the phablet are released.